Cases
SCC Case Information
Summary
33319
John C. Turmel v. Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission
(Federal Court) (Civil) (By Leave)
Keywords
Administrative Law.
Summary
Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch) for information purposes only.
Communications law - Broadcasting - Debate program - Allocation of time - Programming of a partisan political character - Whether the election candidate’s removal from the election debate amounted to denying him an equitable share of free-time partisan political broadcasting during an election period as required by s. 27(4) of the BroadcastingDistribution Regulations, S.O.R./97-555.
The Applicant, Mr. Turmel, was a candidate in a 2007 Ontario provincial election. He participated in an elections debate program hosted by Rogers Cable Communications Inc. At some point during or shortly after he made his opening statement, he was removed from the set and not allowed to participate further in the debate. According to Rogers, Mr. Turmel was removed because he used his opening statement to take issue with the moderator and the debate format, he refused to remove a badge despite the fact that debate rules prohibited him from wearing promotional material, and he interrupted the opening remarks of a fellow candidate.
Mr. Turmel filed a complaint with the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (“CRTC”) alleging his removal amounted to denying him an equitable share of free-time partisan political broadcast during an election period as required by s. 27(4) of the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations.
The CRTC dismissed the complaint. It noted that Mr. Turmel’s request to compel Rogers to provide him with an equitable share of time in the debate was moot given that the election had already taken place. In any event, relying on the Ontario Court of Appeal decision in Vézina v. Canada Broadcasting Corporation (1993), 51 C.P.R. (3d) 192 (Ont. C.A.), the CRTC found that Rogers did not breach the broadcasting requirements set out in s. 27(4) of the Regulations because the provision does not apply to debate programs. Therefore, it was within Rogers’ discretion to exclude participants from the debate who did not comply with the rules and format set for the program.
Leave to appeal the decision to the Federal Court of Appeal pursuant to s. 31(2) of the Broadcasting Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. B-9, was refused. No reasons were given.
